


forget places you’ve never been

by starvels (dinosaur)



Series: continuing drabblefest [2]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 06:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16236512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/starvels
Summary: The dreams are ugly and harsh and full of things that could never happen. Tony's still thankful Steve's there when he wakes up, to remind him of that.





	forget places you’ve never been

**Author's Note:**

> 2/31 oktober drabblefest: forget places you’ve never been. used as the title as well be me lazy lmfao.
> 
> a tldr of this would be: what is and what never should be

Tony wakes up from the dream shaking, shout catching bullet sharp in his dusty throat. He curls into his legs, hacking. The dream swirls in his head, he can’t focus on breathing, pulse in his ears. Fifteen seconds later, he starts wondering if he’s going to cough up his galloping heart.

A hand presses to back, pushes soothing movements across his shaking muscles.

Steve.

 _Sorry_ , Tony thinks hard at him. _Didn’t mean to wake you_.

Steve’s hand cradles the back of Tony’s neck as the bed shifts.

“Babe,” Steve says, quietly.

There’s a water bottle pressing into Tony’s hands. He stretches his hands out from the claws they’ve become, coughs some more, tries to take the bottle. Another cough rattles in his chest, burbles like magma from a stream.

Steve moves it away as Tony’s throat closes up again and he hunches forward, pain rippling down his chest, catching the wake of the dream – the nightmare still in his head. He shakes.

It was so – horrible.

Mean. Brutal. Unwanted.

How could his mind have thought that?

“Tony,” Steve’s saying, his hand moving along Tony’s back. He sounds more worried, now.

 _Sorry_ , Tony thinks again.

He tries to focus, pushing the sticky tack of the dream away in his head, imagines a breath going down easy and staying, his airways clear and relaxed. Steve murmurs things to him, _It’s okay, you got this, I’m here._

Usually, it’s Steve on this side of a cough and Tony with the bottle and Steve’s still fine, still here breathing, through it all. So. _It’s just a fit, it was just a dream,_ Tony thinks at himself.

Eventually, the pain eases.

The water comes back to Tony’s hands. Finally, Tony blinks his eyes open at it. Murky bedroom shapes overlay Steve’s thin hand holding the bottle.  Waiting patiently for Tony to find his balance.

Tony can fit his fingers around the bottle, but. He pauses before lifting it.

“I can help,” Steve says, and lifts the bottle with Tony to his mouth. Tony is stupidly grateful.

 _Thank you,_ he thinks this time.

He drinks, feels the water catch on his rough throat – swallows hard, drinks again, in pace with the tilting of Steve’s hand. Several cycles later, it comes easier, flows down and settles the rolling of his stomach. He leans hard on the hand not holding the bottle. His pulse is still caught in dream-time.

Steve’s pulling them closer, wrapping one arm securely around Tony’s waist, hand pressing at the nape of Tony’s neck. It’s a bit awkward, Tony not moving to make it easier.

“Y’okay?” Steve’s watching him, trying to catch his eye.

The shift of sheets.

“I dreamed,” Tony starts, his voice still rock quarry rough.

Steve’s beautiful brows push together, and he taps on the bottle in Tony’s hands with his free hand.

Tony takes another sip, closes his eyes as the cool liquid flows down his throat. He swallows a second time, opens his eyes again. Smile a small curl on Steve’s face, he leans back into head on the pillow, leaving his arm touching Tony’s back, slow moving circles, and nods at Tony to continue.

“I dreamed,” Tony repeats.

“What?” Steve asks, low and easy.

“We were –“ _Killing each other in the streets. You had mud on your cheek and I didn’t hate you but I wanted to hit you, I hated that I loved you and I wanted to just land a solid good fucking hit -_ “fighting.”

“Hmm.”

It doesn’t convey what it needs to.

“We were,” Tony swallows, “Ugly. To each other. Unreasonable. Not listening. Or, or worse.” _Not caring_.

“We don’t do that.” Steve’s thumb is contemplative now, back and forth.

They don’t, but.

“Then we,” _The burst of molten red under Tony’s strange metal hands, the way Steve’s fingers pried apart Tony’s body. The surety of death, delivered by Steve’s empty galaxy eyes_ , “Hurt each other.”

“We wouldn’t do that.”

Sharp, absolute.

“I know,” Tony whispers.

But. His heart rate is still up. He’s – he’s scared. _We wouldn’t, but what if we did_ , Tony thinks nonsensically.

It was too real.

“Tony,” Steve says softly, “We’re here, in our house. You’ve got a therapy appointment tomorrow, I’ve got lunch with Sam. We proposed to each other at the same dinner because we’re oblivious idiots. I hate when you make chunky gross smoothies,” Tony huffs a small laugh, “You love keeping my panel composition drafts. We’re never – we’ve never physically hurt each other, and we won’t.” His hand is so steady on the back of Tony’s head.

“I know,” Tony says, clearer.

His eyes wander.

Peter’s sunny shots of them in Central Park last Autumn. Messy array of Rogers, G. Steven pills and pens on the bedside dresser. Mismatched, double sets of jewelry in the nice wood inlaid box Jan gave them. Clothes, messy, draped over each other like metaphors for their life. Smeary fingerprinted Stark pad on Tony’s wheelchair. Water bottle they both drink out of, in Tony’s hands.

Physical. Tangible. Real.

Tony takes a deep breath.

“It felt really real,” he whispers.

“It’s not.” Steve’s got that determined voice on, the one that makes Tony believe in him believing in other people, makes Tony feel safe and seen. He leaves the bottle to roll across the mattress on his left and turns into Steve’s side, rearranging his legs, easing back into his pillow. Before he settles, Steve is shuffling forward, curling into the space of Tony’s limbs like they were left open for him.

They lay still for a moment, Tony still watching the room, and the nightmare is curling away now, details growing foggy under the weight of reality.

“Why do brains make up things like that?” Tony mumbles into Steve’s neck.

“They suck.” Steve’s stubborn jaw digs into Tony’s shoulder, “Come here.”

“I am here.” Steve smells like good sheets and sleep.

“Here,” Steve says again, demanding as he eases his leg over Tony’s ever-aching hip. He pulls them back into the cloudscape of pillows.

Tony follows, sighing. _We wouldn’t,_ he thinks again. _We wouldn’t and we won’t._

He falls back asleep in Steve’s gentle arms.

**Author's Note:**

> you can imagine this as a larger 616 adjacent verse in which tony repeatedly has dreams of the horrible things that happen in 616, if you :) like pain like that :)) 
> 
> thanks for reading! tumblr tag for this drabblefest [[here](https://starvels.tumblr.com/tagged/drabblefest)]. post for this fic [[here](https://starvels.tumblr.com/post/178863106266/)].


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